The OfficialToneQuest Report®

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Vol. 27, No. 12

October 2026

Players, Gear & Sound — The Inside

One truth emerges repeatedly in this issue: tone is shaped by more than the obvious. We hear it in Magnatone’s Kingston, where Obeid Khan and Larry Cragg turn experience and careful listening into a remarkable 12-watt amp, and in the PRS NF53, a guitar that borrows from tradition without simply repeating it. John Grammatico takes us somewhere less expected, examining what happens before power ever reaches the amp, while Matt McCulloch puts those ideas to the test. And Martin Myers reminds us why vacuum tubes still matter. The deepest discoveries often begin by listening more closely.

Explore This Issue
The ToneQuest Report, October 2026 cover

Est. 1999

The Player’s Guide
To Ultimate Tone

More Than 25 Years of Glorious Tone.

When the Story Becomes Your Sound™

My ToneQuest Story.

Ryan Wariner playing a Les Paul on stage
Jeff Beck tribute. Photo: Jeff Senn
ToneQuest has meant so much to me since Greg Martin introduced me to it while I was still in high school. I’d always cared deeply about guitar gear and tone, and discovering a publication so focused on both was a revelation. It almost felt like someone had created it just for me. Over the years, I’ve learned about so many new products, players and ideas that TQ has become almost like a handbook. David was such a great guy, and his ability to spotlight the good stuff was a seal of approval in my book. I’m so glad to be a small part of the TQ family and always looking forward to the next issue.

Ryan Wariner

From the Latest Issue

Today’s Reads

Magnatone Kingston
Cover StoryFree to Read

Magnatone Kingston

By Scott Ulrichs. The Kingston began with a deceptively simple idea: build a smaller Magnatone with the fullness, dimension and unmistakable character of its bigger brothers. We sit down with Magnatone’s Ted Kornblum, designer Obeid Khan and Larry Cragg to trace three years of prototyping, listening and refining—from the 12-watt 6V6 platform and custom WGS speaker to digital spring reverb and true pitch-shifting vibrato. What emerges is the story of three experienced ears shaping an amplifier until every part serves the sound.

AmpsOnline Reading Access

Scary-Good Tones From A 1x12 Combo

After nearly a month of playing the Kingston, we put Magnatone’s 12-watt combo through the kind of comparisons that reveal what an amp really has. Against a Princeton Reverb and other favorite low-wattage amps, the Kingston establishes its own voice—big, round, warm and harmonically rich, with a distinctive bloom, breakup and midrange character. Different guitars, pickups, pedals and even vintage 6V6s reveal an amp that responds beautifully across its range, yet proves most compelling simply plugged straight in.

GuitarsFree to Read

The Un-Tele

The NF53 makes more sense once you stop asking it to be a Telecaster. Pete Prown spends time with the U.S.-built PRS and finds a guitar that borrows Leo’s bolt-on, 25.5-inch-scale vocabulary while heading elsewhere with a deep U-shaped maple neck, swamp ash body and Narrowfield DD humbuckers. At under seven pounds, it is comfortable and beautifully set up, delivering warm, punchy twang without the familiar Tele clank. The interest lies in what PRS does with those ingredients.

AccessoriesOnline Reading Access

Just Tell It Like It Is

John Grammatico’s pursuit of sound has taken him from high-end audio and amplifier building to a place few guitarists think to look—the power cable. Here, John traces the listening, experimentation and small refinements that led to four Sonorus cables, each voiced around different eras of Fender, Marshall and Dumble-inspired tone. Riverhorse then puts them to work with familiar amps, guitars and a stock IEC cable for comparison, discovering audible differences in body, warmth, clarity, response and gain that challenge assumptions about where tone begins.

GuitarsOnline Reading Access

Impossible To Unhear

Matt McCulloch approached John Grammatico’s power cables with the ears of a longtime player and a healthy dose of skepticism. His experience with amps mirrored Riverhorse’s, but the real question was what could happen at the pedalboard. Drawing on years of listening to high-end audio and familiar guitar rigs, Matt puts the cables where subtle changes are easy to recognize. What he hears in clarity, dimension, dynamics and the way individual pedals reveal themselves turns an unlikely piece of the signal chain into something impossible to ignore.

AmpsOnline Reading Access

Vacuum Tube Mania Redux

Martin Myers, our go-to tube connoisseur, returns with news from a vacuum-tube world that is anything but finished. Demand is climbing, familiar favorites including 12AX7s, 6V6s, EL84s, EL34s and 6L6s remain firmly in play, and vintage glass continues to hold its appeal. Martin shares what he is seeing and selling, why he believes tubes still deliver something modelers cannot fully reproduce, and the encouraging possibility that high-quality American-made tubes may once again become part of the guitarist’s landscape.

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Billy F Gibbons pointing skyward on stage
ToneQuest is it! Ain’t no thang ’cept TONE

— Billy F Gibbons, ZZ Top · Editorial Advisory Board

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